


the bitter buskin

by sunlightCatcher



Category: Homestuck
Genre: A series of unfortunate events AU, Arson, Canon Non-Binary Character, Child Abuse, Doc Scratch Being Creepy, Forced Marriage, Gen, Metafiction, Strilondes, Theatre
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-12-13
Updated: 2019-12-13
Packaged: 2021-02-26 07:02:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 981
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21779530
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sunlightCatcher/pseuds/sunlightCatcher
Summary: After their parents are killed in a terrible fire, the Strider-Lalonde children are sent to stay with their closest living relative, Doc Scratch. Under a dubious definition of "closest", "relative" and also "living".
Comments: 2
Kudos: 11





	the bitter buskin

The Strider-Lalonde children were kind of assholes. 

Dirk Strider was the oldest, by twelve minutes. He was sixteen years old, and he wore a pair of stupid anime shades wherever he went, even on cloudy days like today. When he wasn't drinking enough orange Coke to drown himself in, he was programming Discord bots to antagonise his siblings and writing essays on the philosophy of My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic. He was basically fucking awesome. 

Roxy Lalonde was Dirk's twin, and as such they were also sixteen years old. They were a huge fan of any and all wizard-related fiction. They dabbled in writing, and owned at it. Roxy was a maestro of wizardly indulgences, and when they weren't racking up kudos on Archive of Our Own, they were also making Discord bots, or dissing PETA on Twitter. In short, Roxy Lalonde was cool as hell. 

Dave Strider was thirteen, and he too wore dumb shades all the time, though his were aviators. They were significantly less rad than Dirk's shades, but they carried an ironicism attribute that pretty much made up for it. He made a webcomic known as Sweet Bro and Hella Jeff, which was highly regarded in many online subcultures for being a work of postmodern art. It would have great historical significance in the years to come. 

Rose Lalonde was Dave's twin, also thirteen of course, and like Roxy she was an avid consumer of wizardfic. She dabbled in poetry, in particular rhyming couplets. She had an interest in witchcraft and the zoologically dubious, and had been given a grimoire for her twelfth birthday by her mother. She enjoyed a good back-and-forth with her siblings, and when it came to discourse she was simply the best there was. 

There's a drawn-out explanation for why Dirk and Dave took their father's surname while Rose and Roxy took their mother's, but it doesn't really matter. Today their parents, Roxanne and Diederik (often referred to as "Mom" and "Bro" respectively) had sent them to Briny Beach to spend the day. It was cloudy, which was the ideal condition for a beach day. Dirk and Rose were in the middle of a lengthy philosophical dialogue, while Roxy was reading Complacency of the Learned fanfiction on their phone and Dave was listening to a podcast, ignoring his siblings. 

DIRK: It still qualifies as philosophy.   
ROSE: Oh, please. You think you know philosophy? You've read, what, two of the Socratic dialogues? And not even the good ones.   
ROSE: Lysis is incredibly shitty and reductive in its definition of "good" and "bad", while Timaeus can hardly be seen as more than the sad final firings of Plato's dead synapses.   
ROSE: Indeed, it sucks so much that historians retroactively decided that Timaeus wasn't a real person, because no real person could be so anal.   
DIRK: Someone didn't understand the concept of Khora.   
ROSE: God help me, if you make this a Derrida thing I will perform a series of unfortunate acrobatic maneuvers off the handle.   
DAVE: jesus this is dumb  
ROSE: If by "this" you mean Dirk's takes on the Chain of Signification, sure.   
ROXY: rose   
ROXY: ily but if i never hear the word pharmakon again itll be too soon   
DAVE: yeah im also team never fucking talk about pharmakon ever again   
DIRK: I find it impossible that anyone could be sick of hearing me talk about Pharmakon.   
DAVE: goddamn it   
DAVE: can i not soak up the fucking sun for five minutes without you two going off about some dumb shit   
ROSE: It's cloudy. That is the entire premise for us being here.   
DAVE: damn i wish i like   
DAVE: was joking about that or something   
DAVE: wouldve been cool   
DAVE: too bad i was completely earnest in my intention to get melanoma in fucking april   
ROXY: hey   
ROSE: Melanoma notwithstanding, I would have thought you'd enjoy hearing me decimate Dirk.   
DIRK: That is not what happened.   
ROSE: Not yet.   
ROXY: hey   
DAVE: oh no dont get me wrong i love this shit   
DAVE: dirk strider owned with facts and logic   
ROXY: HEY!!!   
ROSE: ?   
DIRK: ...   
DAVE: what   
ROXY: mysterious figure approaching outta the fog!!!  


Dirk, Dave and Rose turned to see what the fuck Roxy was talking about. They were right, as it happened. There was indeed a mysterious figure approaching out of the fog. 

ROSE: Now that is a dramatic entrance.   
DAVE: god i wish i was that cool   
ROXY: dude theyre coming over here wtf do we do   
DIRK: All of you stay behind me, just in case.   
ROXY: wait   
DIRK: What?   
ROXY: isnt that the chick from the bank   
ROXY: aradia or w/e   


It was indeed. Aradia, an old friend of Mom and Bro and employee at Megido Money Management, was approaching the four siblings. 

ARADIA: hell0 there children   
ARADIA: l0vely day isnt it   
ROSE: Absolutely.   
ARADIA: im afraid i have s0me deeply tragic news   
ARADIA: y0ur parents have perished in a terrible fire   
ROSE: Excuse me???   
ARADIA: perished means killed   
DAVE: no it doesnt it means they died   
DAVE: also we didnt need anyone to tell us what perished means   
DAVE: also what   
DAVE: oh god   
DAVE: what happened   
ARADIA: they perished in a fire that destr0yed y0ur entire h0me   
ARADIA: im s0 s0rry   
ROXY: whats going to happen to us?!   
ARADIA: y0u will be sent t0 live with y0ur cl0sest living relative   
ARADIA: wh0 i believe is a man named d0c scratch   
ROXY: who dat   
ARADIA: i believe he is the s0n 0f y0ur uncle cal   
ROSE: We have an Uncle Cal?   
DIRK: You didn't know about Uncle Cal?   
ROSE: Whatever. What kind of doctor is Scratch?   
ARADIA: actually he is empl0yed as an act0r   
ROXY: wtf man what is happening rn   
ROXY: no way this is real this is a dream   
ROXY: no wait   
ROXY: guys   
ROXY: this is the bad place   
DAVE: oh shit  


**Author's Note:**

> a short chap so u can dip ur toes in + decide if u vibe  
> plz do heed the tags cause the content is. like that. since its gonna roughly follow the first asoue book.  
> also as per all my fics wherein a character is explicitly trans, im not going to write about transphobia because i make the rules and i dont want to  
> thanks for reading <3


End file.
